Monday, December 10, 2012

The Journey of a Lifetime

A voice of one calling: "In the wilderness prepare the way for the LORD; make straight in the desert a highway for our God!"

~Isaiah 40:3

I'm excited about the
upcoming release of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. One of the reasons I'm attracted to such stories is that I love adventure…or at
least the idea of adventure. For many of us, our lives seem tired and
predictable. We long to put on armor, take up a sword, and set out on a quest.
What we fail to realize is that this is exactly what the Christian life is…and
the quest begins at Advent.

From the prophet Isaiah and on through generations, John the Baptizer picks up the call to adventure: “The King is
coming to expand his kingdom into the barren wilderness of your lives. Get
ready!”

And so the quest begins…the quest
to ready our inner and outer world for the coming King.

We come to The Shadow Valley. It is
deep and lonely. The sun rises late and sets early. It is easy to despair here,
to give up on the best and settle for whatever we can get our groping hands on.
But the call is for the Valley to be filled. And what do we fill it with? Hope.
As the Valley is filled with hope we move from darkness to light. No longer
settling for just anything, we hold out for the best of things. The light
begins to show us that there is something more…the King will bring it.

Next we move to Eye Mountain. It
is cool and sunny and from the summit we can see for miles. We see all kinds of
possibilities, good and bad. We begin to calculate all we could
possess. We begin to fear the obstacles we see. We begin to look for higher
mountains so we can see more. But the call is for the mountains
to be brought low. And what will bring those mountains down? Humility. As the
mountains are leveled by humility we move from sight to faith. No longer
distracted by all of life’s good and bad potentialities, by greener
pastures and higher peaks, we focus on the path before us. Walking by faith
allows for whatever might lie on the path, meeting what comes our way…the
King will command it.

Then we come to The Crooked Road.
We are going one way, then we are going another. The path becomes rocky so we
think we might head off in a new direction, on a new path altogether. Perhaps this new path is
the quest we should’ve been on all along. But the call comes to make the
crooked path straight and the rough way smooth. And what can straighten and
smooth this road? Holiness. Not a vain attempt at following a list of do’s and
don’ts, but a focus, a movement from wandering to direction. No longer looking
for easier paths and different quests, we dig in with determination to
continue on the journey of our lives. The straight, directed path allows us to
make progress into the deeper country of our quest…the King will guide it.

As we move from darkness to light, from sight to
faith, and from wandering to direction, a strange thing happens... to be continued